“Jesus …”
“The real anomaly lies in the fact that Houston’s radar board showed green the whole time Adventurer’s sensors were screaming bloody murder. Even when … whatever it was came into view of the astronauts, there was no evidence of it on any board back on Earth.”
“That doesn’t seem possible.”
“There are plenty of scientists with million-dollar salaries claiming the same thing. A few are actually theorizing the attack came from outer space, as if we finally had strayed too far into someone else’s territory.”
“You believe that, Captain?”
“Absolutely not. I’m a military man, Miss Lister, and I don’t buy passing off every unexplainable occurrence to some empire’s death star. A human finger pushed the button that destroyed Adventurer, and I’ve got a feeling whoever owns that finger isn’t finished yet.”
“A mess!” the President raged. “A goddamn raging, stinking mess!” He turned from the window of the Oval Office and faced Andrew Stimson. “Permission for you to use McCracken was revoked after the Paris incident. What in hell gave you the right to call him in on your own?”
Stimson found himself wishing fewer lights were on in the Oval Office so the fury on the President’s face wouldn’t be so obvious.
“Tom Easton gave me the right, sir,” he said plainly. “He was my man and somebody sliced him to bits. McCracken was my best bet, my only bet, to find out who did it and why. I felt his skills were the ones that were needed.”
“Skills that have brought the French to the verge of breaking off intelligence relations with us after his little escapade in Paris,” Barton McCall snapped.
“What about the three dead terrorists? Or doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Oh, it counts for plenty when the shooting was done on foreign soil by an agent who hasn’t had kill clearance for five years.” McCall paused, then raised his voice. “Plenty of embarrassment! And if that weren’t enough, he pulls a repeat performance on the streets of New York this afternoon. The streets of New York, Andy! If only that explosion had killed him once and for all …”
“What was McCracken doing on that boat in the first place?” the President asked.
“I explained that. Sebastian was connected with Madame Rosa. He set up Easton.”
“Then you knowingly let McCracken intrude on a Bureau operation?”
“I had to. There was no choice.” Stimson’s eyes flashed between the President and McCall, finding no support from either.
“The Bureau doesn’t share your view,” the President told him. “They’re steaming over this. Six months of surveillance and investigative work went down the drain.”
“Thanks to the bomb, not McCracken.”
McCall lit his pipe. “And what about this famous microfiche McCrackenballs miraculously discovered? Has it yielded anything yet?”
“It will,” Stimson said, not sounding as sure as he had tried to.
McCall puffed away. “You know, Andy, we could have avoided all this if you had kept closer tabs on the personal … tastes of your agents. Twins, Andy? I mean, really.”
“And what about Chen, Barton? Or is it routine for you to station your men in whorehouses to murder madams?”
McCall yanked the pipe from his mouth and held it out like a gun. “I had no knowledge concerning this man Chen until you informed me of his involvement this afternoon.”
“Maybe it’s you who should keep closer tabs on your agents.”
“Chen was freelance. On retainer with the Company but he filled plenty of other orders as well.”
“Enough, gentlemen!” the President broke in. “I’ll accept what’s happened because I have to. The question now is, how do we pick up the pieces? What’s McCracken’s condition, Andy?”
“He’s been slipping in and out of consciousness since the explosion. Moderate concussion and numerous bruises and lacerations. Nothing broken though. He’ll be duty-fit within a few days.”
“Then he’ll also be fit enough to be pulled out,” the President said flatly. “He’s become too much of a liability. As soon as he’s ready to travel, Andy, I want him brought down here to face a proper board of inquiry on the fiasco over in Paris so a determination can be made about his future.”
“Retirement, sir?” Stimson asked, his meaning clear.
“Normal retirement. I want him buried so deep he’ll never become a thorn in our side again.
“In a desk job, sir, or a casket?”
Sandy Lister met with T.J. Brown in his office first thing Thursday morning. She began stripping off her coat as he looked up from his computer terminal.
“Benjamin Kelno is clean as driven snow, boss,” he reported, punching up the results of his labors on the monitor screen.
Disappointed, Sandy sat down before it. She had hoped something in Kelno’s background would offer some clue as to where he came into possession of the orbital flight plan he died planting on her.
“He spent the last twelve years of his life with the COM-U-TECH division of Krayman Industries,” T.J. began, highlighting the information displayed on the monitor, “in the research and development areas. He was instrumental in creating The Krayman Chip, but as so often is the case in these matters, he received no credit.”
“Disgruntled?”
“Not openly. His salary was six figures, he was promoted four times, and he left a loving wife and family. As near as I can tell, he turned down numerous offers from Krayman competitors in Silicon Valley, but there’s no evidence he ever even interviewed with any of them.” T.J. stopped and leaned back. “Now it’s your turn. How’d it go with Coglan?”
Sandy moved away from the monitor screen. “Adventurer’s destruction was no accident, that much is for sure. And whoever blew it out of the sky would have needed to know its orbital flight plan.”
“Kelno’s disk,” T.J. muttered. “Krayman Industries …”
“I’m not ready to make that connection yet.”
“Sure, boss. But if it’s true, and they killed Kelno because he tried to bring the story to you, it’s not hard to figure who they’ll be going after next.”
“Calm down. Your own research doesn’t show a damn thing that supports that conclusion. Krayman Industries is after control of the media. Destroying space shuttles doesn’t fit there anywhere I can see. Who knows what Kelno might have been up to in his spare time?”
“We going to Shay with this yet?”
“Give me a couple more days.”
“For what?”
“You’re the one who said Krayman Industries and Randall Krayman were one and the same. My first interview is scheduled for tomorrow with a man who’s got good reason to drag mud through the Krayman Tower. If something’s going on there, he just might know what it is.”
Chapter 9
Francis Dolorman looked nothing like the stereotype of the chief executive officer of a multi-billion-dollar consortium. As the man who succeeded the great Krayman upon his withdrawal five years before, he craved little attention and received even less. Anyone passing his small, thin figure on the street would never give him a second look and barely even a first.
Though Francis Dolorman was powerful and prominent, he did not throw lavish parties. He did not wine and dine political officials. He did not dream of his picture on the cover of Time, Newsweek, or People, and would have refused such a request if it were ever made of him. He preferred to lurk in relative obscurity. Public invisibility was a godsend because it permitted movement.